Google data shows most-searched New Zealand place name pronunciations

An analysis of recent Google data has revealed some of the New Zealand place names people find most difficult to pronounce.

Language company Preply, based in the US, analysed Google search data to find how many times people searched for “how to pronounce” or “how to say” certain place names. The top 15 searched place names were ranked.

At the top of the list was Taupō. Between August 2022 to August 2023, 1720 people on average searched for pronunciation guidance for the central North Island town.

Taupō topped the list as the most-searched place name pronunciation.

The name Taupō is an abbreviation of Taupō-nui-a-Tia [the great cloak of Tia], Martin Wikaira wrote in a Te Ara article, Ngāti Tūwharetoa - The journeys of Ngātoroirangi and Tia.

Tia was a chief who travelled up the North Island. As he continued around the eastern shores of the present-day Lake Taupō, he noticed the peculiar colouring and appearance of the cliff face resembled the rain cloak he was wearing, prompting him to name the cliffs Taupō-nui-a-Tia, Wikaira wrote.

The name was later given to the lake by the occupying tribes.

The second name on the list was Whanganui. Since the mid-1800s, there have been two different spellings used for the area

According to the district council, the different spellings derived from the way local iwi pronounced the name ‘Whanganui’ (the ‘wh’ creating a barely aspirated sound), and how European settlers wrote down the word as they heard it (‘Wanganui’).

Whanganui town and its river.

Tauranga, Dunedin and Whangārei were next on the list. Sonny Ngatai, an advocate for te reo Māori, previously explained to the Herald the pronunciation of Tauranga was often mangled, but rather than just telling people how to say a Māori word, or kupu, it was important to provide the story behind it.

For example, Tauranga referred to the harbour as being a “resting place for waka” - like a “canoe carpark”, Ngatai told the Herald for a previous story.

“I don’t want people to feel patronised, so rather than just saying, ‘Say it like this’, I want to give the whakapapa behind it so people understand why it is important to get it correct.”

The top 15 most-searched place names for pronunciation guidance (figures represent the total of the monthly averages across the 12 months to August 2023):

• Taupō (1720)
• Whanganui (1690)
• Tauranga (1590)
• Dunedin (1560)
• Whangārei (1510)
• Rotorua (1490)
• Auckland (1460)
• Paraparaumu (1450)
• Motueka (1290)
• Ruapehu (1240)
• Whakatāne (1190)
• Blenheim (1190)
• Napier (1120)
• Wellington (1110)
• Christchurch (1010)

In Australia, the Queensland city of Cairns was the most-searched name with regard to pronunciation on Google, followed by Prahran and Melbourne in Victoria.

Recently, the Ngā Pou Taunaha o Aotearoa New Zealand Geographic Board released a new map of New Zealand’s tangata whenua place names and included explanations and the meanings behind those names.

It was the first time in almost 30 years the map of Aotearoa New Zealand’s original place names before European settlers arrived had been updated.

Shane Te Ruki (Ngāti Maniapoto, Waikato, Ngāti Porou), who was on the New Zealand Geographic Board during the maps’ development, told the Herald at the time place names - and their associated meanings and narratives - were portals into the past that could help us understand who we are in the present and who we could become in the future.

“Names of land and spaces are really important because they speak to us, they tell us of a time past.”

Māori brought names with them from Hawaiki and from within Polynesia, Te Ruki said. Other names were “seen, felt and developed” in Aotearoa by observing the natural geography, flora and fauna. When settlers arrived, they too brought names with them to create their own sense of place.

“Many Māori names were subsumed, passed over, even just completely and utterly replaced.”